I smiled. ‘I wish Mum could have met you.’
He moved towards the stepladder where I still balanced, placing his lips against my bare ankle.
That evening, Sarah arrived at the hut with a sleeping bag stuffed underarm. ‘Can I stay?’
‘Course.’ I pushed myself up from Nick’s lap and crossed the hut, wrapping my arms around her. ‘Maggie’s birthday, isn’t it?’
She nodded. Maggie was her older sister, who was killed in a road accident the year before I met Sarah.
I took Sarah’s hand and pulled her across the deck, into the hut. ‘Watch the paint. It’s wet.’
‘Sherbet lemon yellow,’ she said with a smile. ‘I love it.’
Nick gave Sarah a warm hug, then told us he was going to The Rope and Anchor on the quay. I loved him in that moment for his tact, his sense of knowing when Sarah and I needed to be alone.
That night the air was warm and windless, and we built a fire near the shoreline and sat around it drinking cheap French beers and smoking.
As I shuffled closer to the flames, holding my palms up to the heat, Sarah said, ‘I threw the ball.’
There was no introduction, no explanation. In the darkness I couldn’t see her expression, but I knew exactly what she was talking about. Maggie was chasing after a ball when she was hit by the car that killed her. Sarah had told me before how she remembered Maggie lying on the roadside, an arm behind her back, her school skirt twisted around her waist. ‘Her knickers were on show – pink cotton ones with a mouse on the front that were too babyish for her. I thought, How embarrassing! Everyone can see your knickers! Honestly, that was my very first thought.’
Sarah poked at the fire with a stick, sending orange sparks crackling into the night. ‘I threw it,’ she said again. ‘It was this bouncing ball, as big as my fist, and when it bounced, silver glitter swirled like falling snow. I loved it – it was my favourite thing.’ She shook her head lightly. ‘I didn’t even mean to throw it. I was just holding it one moment … and the next I must have let it go without thinking. The ball started bouncing away from me, glittering in the sunlight. Maggie chased after it for me. She didn’t trip, didn’t stumble. She literally stepped right off the pavement without looking, her hand reaching out for my ball. I saw the car coming. It was bright red with a flat shiny bonnet and those pop-up lights. Do you remember? Some of the older sports cars had them. They were so square and sharp. I screamed at her to look out, but …’
I laced my fingers through Sarah’s, squeezing tight.
‘I threw the ball,’ she whispered, leaning against my shoulder. Her hair smelt of wood-smoke and dewberry shampoo. ‘I wish more than anything I hadn’t. She’d be twenty-one today.’
‘It wasn’t your fault,’ I whispered back. ‘It was an accident.’
A trail of tears glistened on Sarah’s cheeks. ‘You know what my mum said on the morning of the funeral? We were sitting at the kitchen table waiting for the hearse, listening to my father pacing on the landing above. He must have paused outside my sister’s room as we both heard the creak of the door handle being turned, then a gulp as if a sob was being swallowed. Mum pressed the heels of her hands into her eye sockets. She shook her head, hands twisting into her face. I could smell her lipstick, and the heat of tea on her breath as she said, “You should never, ever, throw a ball near a road! Remember that, Sarah! Remember!” She couldn’t even look at me.’
That night, as on many others, Sarah and I fell asleep on the beach, the stars watching over us. We crawled into my hut at dawn, dewy and shivering, and fell asleep on the sofa bed, a pile of blankets pulled over us.
Nick found us the next morning, curled together like a clasped shell around our secret pearls of grief.
Seven months later, I found myself at Heathrow Airport. I was standing at the departures gate, with Sarah facing me, arms folded. ‘You know Nick’s heartbroken?’
I tipped my head back, closed my eyes. ‘Don’t.’ I felt the weight of my backpack on my shoulders and against my pelvis. It was comforting, like a solid hug. I liked knowing that, for the next year, everything I needed was right here on my back.
‘He would’ve gone with you.’
I straightened. ‘I couldn’t let him give up his job. He loves it.’ He’d just started working as a marketing executive for a large agency that was young and forward-thinking and worked with some great clients. Nick practically bounced out of bed in the mornings, excited to get to the office.
‘It wasn’t only that, was it?’ Sarah said, her gaze still pinned on me.
‘I need to do this alone.’ I reached out and took her fingers in mine. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said softly, understanding that Sarah was hurt that I was leaving her, too. It was difficult to explain why I had to go on my own. For the last few months, the idea of travelling had become intoxicating. Every time I pictured it, there was no one else in the frame. It was me I saw riding a bus, my head leant against the sun-warmed window. It was me who would be getting lost in the dusty heat of a city. It was me who would be swimming in a lagoon on my own.
I needed time for myself. If Nick came with me, he’d keep me safe, plan routes, book accommodation, look after me – when I didn’t want any of that. I wanted to put myself in the hands of the universe and see what happened.
‘I’ll wait for you,’ he’d told me last night as I’d locked up the beach hut.
‘You mustn’t. Please,’ I’d begged him, burying my face in his neck.
When we’d stepped apart, he’d placed a final kiss on my forehead, almost reverently. He’d cleared his throat and told me, ‘Even though we’re not together now, Isla, if you have any problems – anything at all – you call me, okay? Whatever it is, wherever you are, whatever time of day or night – please don’t be too proud to call. If you need anything, I’m here. Okay?’
I’d felt tears prick at the base of my eyelids. I’d wrapped my arms around him one last time and wondered why the hell I was letting him go.
A flight delay was announced over the airport Tannoy, and I listened to check it wasn’t mine. Then I reached into the side pocket of my backpack, and slipped out a silver key that was attached to a small stone by a browning piece of string. ‘Here,’ I said, handing it to Sarah. ‘This is for you.’
‘Your beach hut key?’
‘I want you to look after it while I’m gone. Use it. Stay there.’
‘Really?’
I couldn’t bear the thought of the hut standing empty. I wanted it to be used, enjoyed, loved. I looked Sarah squarely in the eye and asked, ‘Take care of Nick for me, too?’ I paused. ‘I want him to be happy.’
Sarah stared at me for a long moment, her gaze moving searchingly across my face. ‘Okay.’
I sometimes think about that request and wonder exactly what I meant by it.
What Sarah
